The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(60)

“Down!” I whispered, gesturing. “Quiet!”

Arviragus clamped a hand over the Amazon girl’s mouth and dragged her into a crouch behind a boulder. The others followed, scattering to hide themselves behind rocks and trees. I saw Quint, crouched and sprinting, disappear behind a rise of hill, and then my attention was wholly occupied by the smell of burning and the sound of many footsteps. The Amazons of Corsica streamed out from beneath the trees. Twenty, maybe thirty of them altogether. More than twice our numbers.

Too many.

Far too many of them for us to fight . . .

I felt a swell of despair in my chest as they strode out into the open. In their fists, they bore long chains from which strange lanterns swung—ball-shaped iron cages filled with pine-tar resin, the source of the green-tang smoke. They burned with roiling orange and blue flames and looked like smoldering souls captured from battlefields. As they entered the oppidum clearing and ranged themselves into a circle, some of the younger girls went around, lighting torches on poles with the lamps, and soon the clearing was bathed in an eerie, crepuscular glow.

I didn’t see Thalestris among them as the torch lighters joined their sisters in a circle and, together, the Amazons began to stamp their feet on the bare earth—in time with each other at first. And then, slowly, the rhythm shifted, becoming complex with counterbeats and accent stomps that reminded me of the hide drums the Cantii warriors carried into the field to frighten our enemies. As the cadence built, growing faster and louder, the Amazons began to swing the lamp chains back and forth. Another stomp and one girl in the circle whipped her lamp overhead in a full fiery arc, followed by the girl next to her . . . and the next, until the clearing was full of roaring hoops made of flame. As I watched, open-mouthed, the shapes they drew in the air changed, and the circle they formed disintegrated as each Amazon broke out into a dance of her own—distinct from one another, and yet still a part of the whole. Individual flourishes flowed in fiery patterns from Amazon to Amazon, as if they were storytellers passing a tale from each to each. It was a mesmerizing spectacle—like nothing I’d ever seen before—and I began to understand the stories of the Amazons and their terrible war-magic, gifted to them by the gods.

The flaming cages whirled, faster and faster, painting circles of fire in the darkening air, like red and gold flowers blooming in the darkness, and the whoosh of the roaring flames sounded like the fearsome cries of wild beasts. The Amazons moved like dancers, whipping the fireballs through the air so that they would loop around necks and limbs and then double back, lashing the air like the crack of Nyx’s whip and skimming past flesh by a hairsbreadth. They swung them in twisting arcs, leaping over the chains and ducking under them, and as they danced, the tempo of their feet increased until it was one great thunderous noise. The fireballs arced high over their heads to slam down into the ground in showers of sparks . . .

And then silence.

Deafening in the wake of the roaring war dance.

I blinked against the momentary fire-blindness that marred my sight, lightning traces crisscrossing my field of vision as I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, it was to see the Amazons standing statue-still in their circle, fire chains held at their sides, plumes of smoke rising from the still-burning cages.

And into that smoldering circle strode Thalestris, dressed for war.

She carried no lantern, only a slender spear in one hand and a long-bladed knife in the other. I felt every muscle in my body tense as she stalked across the circle to stand before the menhir where Sorcha was bound. I saw my sister lift her head to meet Thalestris’s gaze, her eyes burning with defiance.

“Cybele!” Thalestris shouted to the skies, arms spread wide in supplication. “Black stone mother! Guardian of the boundaries between the living and the dead! Accept this blood sacrifice that we may wash the shame of our sister Orithyia’s disgrace and defeat from our skins and from our souls!”

It seemed to me, in that moment, some kind of twisted version of the oath rites of the Ludus Achillea. Like something seen in a warped bronze mirror, glimpsed through a pall of oily dark smoke. Something Pontius Aquila and his Sons of Dis would appreciate . . . I shuddered at the thought.

There was a moment of ominous stillness among the women warriors gathered there, and then a battle cry errupted from their collective throats, shattering the gathering night. I felt a hand of panic squeezing my heart. There was nothing we could do in that moment—facing off against a ring of flame-wielding warrior women—that would save my sister. A direct charge of the Achillea fighters would only get them killed outright, and that I would not do.

So I readied myself to do the only thing I could think of. Charge them myself and hope that a single target would be harder to hit. Hope that I could get to Sorcha before—

Thalestris raised her knife . . .

The cage flames whirled again. Faster and faster . . .

And then, above it all, I heard the high-pitched skree of Quintus’s signal whistle as he sounded three short blasts.

“Legio Achillea!” Cai reacted immediately, shouting in his command voice. “Form up!”

I spun around to see him standing atop a boulder—sword raised high, shield at the ready—and I was up and moving before his command had died in the air. As I ran, I reached over my shoulder and unhooked the shield that hung on my back, drawing the sword from my left hip with my right hand. I saw the other Achillea girls leaping from their hiding places to do likewise.